Australian election statistics

This page contains a statistical interface for House of Representative elections since 1901. Various graphic options are available; the first icon in the
set below is for tables, which list the results in each electorate in a chosen year and state. (Tables may take 20 seconds or so (?!) to load in some
browsers.)

Two-party-preferred (TPP) results and preference flows are always reported as the Labor share. Swings do not take
into account redistributions. South Australia and Tasmania were multi-member electorates for 1901 and are excluded from
the statistics. Preference flows and TPP figures prior to 1983 are often estimates. Various other notes and bugs are listed below.
Show notes.

Bugs or missing obvious features

If there are multiple candidates from one party in a seat, and one of them has the lowest primary vote percentage for that party that year, then
the default colour scale for the party will be set at that percentage, even though none of the seats in a graphic plot will show a value that low.

Legend colour scales will print - and +, to indicate that some values go beyond the extent of the scale, if and only if that is the default setting.
e.g., even if you truncate a primary vote colour scale manually, the - and + won't be displayed on the legend.

Manually-set colour scale bounds are reset when switching between plots.

Total TPP preference flow doesn't get calculated for non-classic divisions even when the TPP is known.

In some plots, independent members of a party that just changed its name won't have a swing calculated. (e.g., an independent Anti-Socialist in 1906
won't have a swing calculated even if an independent Free Trader contested the seat in 1903.)

Zooming during one of the animated transitions may result in errors. I hope most of them will be invisible outside of the JavaScript console.

Other notes

Labor is abbreviated to "ALP" in all years, even though it wasn't always called that.

The Queensland LNP is treated as a separate entity from the Liberal and National Parties, and as a result, swings are either wild or non-existent
(depending on the plot) in Queensland in 2010.

Newcastle 1998 has a guessed TPP, so the 1998 TPP totals differ slightly from the official tables.

If you zoom during a map transition, the final map is wrong, but if you zoom again it'll fix itself.

When changing years, if the selected party's name changed, you might end up with a related party instead of the obvious choice being plotted.

Where electorates changed their name, officially or effectively, the dataset treats them as one. But there are quite likely cases that I've missed.

For state and national totals, TPP figures include any estimated or guessed seat results (this is particularly relevant prior to 1983, when
preferences were not counted to completion). But primary vote totals will only include actually counted votes. In some early elections with many
seats won unopposed, this can make some parties' totals look low.

Tasmania and South Australia are excluded from all national totals in 1901, which is why the total number of seats is low.

By-elections are not included.

When more than one candidate from a party (or multiple independents) contest a seat, their swings will all be compared to the same value derived
from the previous election, so the sum of the swings for a seat will not necessarily be equal to zero.

In elections where the Victorian Country Party was split, the ACP and LCP results are subsumed in CP results in some charts, despite being listed
as separate options. (i.e., a scatter plot of "LCP" results will show all Country Party seats.)

The Victorian CP splits cause other issues. For TPP purposes, Alex Wilson is treated as Coalition rather than as a special case (the latter would
be the correct thing to do). CP to LCP swings will be calculated, but CP to UCP swings will not.

There is at least one case where a party's name changes (Liberty and Democracy Party to Liberal Democratic Party), but only one name is seen
anywhere in the dataset.

In bar charts, the "Others" won't display a TPP preference flow, even though one could be calculated.

Variables are supposed to be linked between different plots (e.g., if you click on an electorate in a map, and then switch to bar charts, that
electorate's results should be displayed). But there are some irregularities which I haven't fully documented.

In histograms, the bin width and xref parameters will determine the extent of the x-axis, even when plotting a density estimate.

In the tables underneath a histogram, division names are based on the year of the first row in the histogram table.

In the tables underneath a histogram, an asterisk to the right of an entry indicates an estimated value; two asterisks indicate a guessed TPP; guessed
values are not included when calculating histograms.

State/national TPP flow figures sometimes have low sample sizes in the years when preferences weren't counted to completion.

Sitting members not recorded anywhere in the dataset.

When colouring a scatter plot by state, if the colour year is different from the years being plotted on x and y, then some circles may be blank. But
all seats' states will be printed in the table.

Territories are not shown on the scatter plots prior to 1966, and are not included in national totals prior to 1966.

Non-classic TCP values can only be plotted in bar charts.

Exhaustion rates are ignored in the years (1984-1996) where some votes exhausted. TPP preference flows always sum to 100%.

There are no "Overall Coalition primary" totals.

Qld protectionists are coded as Protectionist in 1901 but NLU in 1903 (except in Darling Downs, where Groom was elected unopposed).

URL's won't store zooms, highlighted seats, or colour scale bounds. The URL in the textbox doesn't automatically update, and will need to be
re-generated when wanted.

URL's may break in unexpected ways if I find errors in the dataset (particularly in the way I handle some electorates) and re-generate everything.

There is quite a bit of disagreement between sources for the turnouts in 1901 (and possibly later as well, though I haven't checked). I think I've
made some good guesses, but I wouldn't trust the figures much.